In an era where my thirst for comedy has wandered the endless plains of available cable and streaming options, in search for the next show that could be heralded as a worthy successor to the towering heights of creative, edgy and outspoken humor reached by Seinfeld or The Simpsons (a search one might find similar to that of finding intelligent lifeforms in our galaxy), I had recently been exposed to several propaganda pieces promoting That ’90s Show as a potential candidate of being considered in this discussion. With the hope that my search would be coming to an end, I watched the first season of Netflix‘s latest addition. Sadly, my hopes faded away as quickly as the bright sunlight does during winter days at high latitudes.
There are two reasons for the disappointment. One concerns the product, the other concerns the audience (me).
That ’90s Show has several flaws one can easily pinpoint in order to understand its shortcomings as a good comedy show, let alone a great one. I believe there should be an overall consensus that its predecessor –That ’70s Show– was a good sitcom. I would not quite label it as a great one, due to the last three seasons’ quality falling under the standard the show set -a discussion that deserves its own separate topic-. Still, 70s was a solid and funny show about a group of teenagers living in Wisconsin during the second half of the 70s, with several cultural references and settings relevant to the time the show is set; but more importantly, with characters that felt real, and acted like actual people living in the 70s in the American Midwest. It also helped that the cast was solid and the actors exceeded all the expectations placed on them. Needless to say, almost all of the young cast went on to embark on their own successful solo-careers. Personally, I always felt Ashton Kutcher was arguably the most talented member, with the others not too far behind his abilities. I could tell this from the very first episode of the show. In contrast, That ’90s Show has neither settings nor characters that feel real.
From the first episode, the question that should come up in the audience’s mind is: “When is this taking place?” Within a few minutes, the show seems to establish that the year is 1995. In a matter of seconds everything goes downhill from there. My immediate thought was to wonder whether if the writers knew what it was to be a teenager in 1995. If they didn’t, did the writers research what it was to be a teenager in 1995? With so many resources available, including having access to contemporary shows of the time such as Beverly Hills, My So Called Life, and Party of Five, it seems that the answer to both two thoughts was a resounding No.
The problem with the show is that it tries too hard to be a current (2023) modernized interpretation of how life was in the 90s, employing the narrative used in That ’70s Show, while featuring desultory attempts to bring the main characters together. The result of this blend is a traumatizing mix that can leave your brain sore after a few consecutive episodes. I had to pause every ten minutes or so to gather strength to keep watching the show, mainly because the plots thrive on the idea of political correctness in a way that is not how things worked in 1995. Certainly the 90s featured feminists (Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell), gays (Rickie Vasquez from My So Called Life), and african-americans blending in prominent roles in a white-predominant cast (The Quizmaster from Sabrina), but the characters were driven by the set they were in, along with their own individual values. It is hard to explain, but the same character type in That ’90s Show, behaves as if they are given a recipe of how to act, which also restricts their freedom of understanding why do they act the way they do. Simply put, the characters do not act like teenage Gen X teenagers, and they do not even act like Millenial teenagers. They act like Gen Zs in a setting filled with vague references of the 90s. The script has so many out of place fatuous dialogues, it is almost impossible to buy into these kids being Gen Xers.
A particular scene that exemplifies my reasoning features a character joyfully smiling, signing and dancing to Alanis Morissette’s Ought to know in a very impassioned and lackluster way compared to the context of how it should have been in 1995. She should have been screaming her lungs out, breaking her voice and throwing stuff around her bedroom, because that is what the song is about; instead, it looks as if the character was joyfully signing and dancing to Taylor Swift’s Shake it off. If you watch the scene, you will hear a needle scratch in your head. The character is interrupted and dialogue begins without any significance of what we had been showed moments before. A better approach would have been to portray the character passionately yelling the lyrics deep from their lungs, having their voice faltering more and more after every sang word in order to show a raw emotional state filled with feelings of a conflict to be explored in further episodes, because that is what Ought to know’s lyrics transmit, and that is how us teenagers back in the 90s digested the song. A parallel can be drawn back to the first episode of That ’70s Show when something similar happens to the characters listening to Todd Rundgren, which serves as an establishment of a plot that lasts for a few episodes. This same approach was also perfectly executed on other shows as well: there is a reason why an enfuriated Brenda Walsh listens to Losing my religion after breaking up with her boyfriend Dylan in Beverly Hills; or why a hopeless romantic Ross Geller dedicates With or without you to Rachel in Friends. Instead, this scene in 90s featuring Ought to know could have had any other song being played, danced to and sang, without generating any significant impact on the plot.
This loss of a geniune 90s feel impacts the second reason for my disappointment: the humor. Humor in the 90s was irreverant, dark, filled with satire and irony. Did the writers forget they had to focus on a decade that arguably can be referred as the prime comedic decade in entertainment history? The 90s were the decade of the prime Simpsons, Seinfeld, Southpark, Ren and Stimpy, VH-1, MTV, The Larry Sanders Show, and so on. Therefore, this leads to a mind-boggling question: who is the audience of this show? Is it the fans of That ’70s Show? Or is it the Gen Zs and Millenials? If it’s the former, then unless I (and everyone around me) lived inside a parallel 90s universe, the humor falls flat. If it’s the latter, then I wouldn’t be able to tell if they would appreciate the humor, but I would say they will have a specious impression of how life was in the 90s. Even details as trivial as the characters’ clothing and hairstyles are completely off.
Fuller House also failed in recreating the atmosphere that had been built by its predecessor Full House, but a point can be made that it was probably due to the main characters being completely different people from the ones we saw in the original show. That is: the three girls we met in Full House, were now full grown adult women in Fuller House, so they are obviously going to act differently from how they were in they younger days. This of course results in themes that will be more adult-oriented, rather than the family-oriented plots that were regularly featured in Full House.
I wasn’t expecting anything particular from That ’90s Show in terms of characters and plots, but having seen the end results, I have to say that I am disappointed at how trite the show is, and at the lost opportunities of having a nerd kid obsessed with getting the gang hooked on the internet, a confident yet green handsome kid with a “conquer-the-world” attitude, a passionate and naturally gifted sports kid, a down-to-Earth hardworking kid, an artistic kid, and spoiled kid. With so many avenues and storylines to fill, it would have been interesting to see this blend come together with an authentic feel of the realistic wants and needs that teenagers had back then: the latest videogame, the latest sport event, the concerts, the defiance of the 80s, the counterculture… and that new emerging thing called the internet.
In the end, my search will continue, as I keep looking for something that will bring back the basic roots of comedy that have been missing for quite a while now.
HR